Why Restaurants Should Ban Food Photos

Cameras and restaurants go together like bananas and Sprite. And now restaurants like David Chang's Momofuku Ko (so not just hipster-baiting San Francisco coffee shops or James Blunt-hating Dublin fish joints), are finally disallowing patrons from snapping pictures of their meals. And they have plenty of good reasons. Here's a list of 'em — and it doesn't even really go into that whole pseudo-auteurist complex issue (well, maybe one little bit about that).

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It's distracting you.

It's distracting who you're with.

It's distracting you from who you're with.

It's distracting the other diners.

It's distracting the chef.

It chills the food. That chef just painstakingly prepared a delicious hot meal that you couldn't make on your own (because why else would you order it?) and needs to be eaten now. That's not even just courtesy and respect. That's thermodynamics.

It makes you look foolish. Apparently people sometimes stand up to get a bird's-eye shot of their plate. Don't.

It's just not good photography. Is this what you're doing? Is this what you're doing? Nope. Because your lighting sucks (and if you're using a flash in well-lit restaurant, lord save your malnourished soul). And because unlike those two examples, you didn't cook it, which is the only time it might — might, because you're only solving one of the aforementioned problems — be acceptable to photograph the feast in front of you. [Via The New York Times]